Idle Romance
by Angel Weasel-Woman
Summary: Tai has something interesting to show Izzy on his laptop.


Izzy pulled his feet under him, flipping the page of his book. He had been exiled to the couch some time ago after his boyfriend had come over, claiming internet troubles at home. After a thorough lecture on the delicacy of the machinery ("Tai, if you download_ anything_ I'll break up with you – I swear!") his precious laptop was handed over. The sound of his mouse key clicking echoed in his ears and he thought briefly, _'Do I sound that irritating?'_

"Tai," he said quietly, not looking up from his book. "You said you needed my laptop for homework. That clicking sounds nothing like homework."

"I stopped working on that an hour ago," Tai told him from his spot sprawled out on the floor. Izzy squawked and Tai ducked as _1984_ flew past his hair. It was a good thing Izzy was terrible at anything physical.

"You mean to tell me that you have monopolized my computer for the past hour for a purpose other than what you originally intended?!" Tai blinked, giving him that blank look he wore so well. "What could you have possibly been doing to hold you attention so raptly, then?"

Still that look. Izzy sighed. "What are you doing?"

Tai beamed suddenly. He grabbed the pineapple laptop and dragged it to the couch, flunking it heavily in the redhead's lap. Izzy felt ill at the treatment of his cherished device. On the screen was a giant cookie floating in a blue abyss, a column next to it listing various items such as "cursors" and "grandmothers". There was a line of numbers above the cookie. 154,879.

"Isn't it sweet?" Tai said with a proud grin. "My save at home is much more impressive. I get, like, almost a billion CPS on that one."

"Child... Protective Services?" Izzy's eyebrows furrowed together.

Tai made a face. "That's stupid. It means 'cookies per second'. Here, let me show you." The brunette clambered onto the couch, leaning heavily against his boyfriend's shoulder. His breath was warm on Izzy's cheek and it was getting hard to be mad at him as he pointed at the screen. "See, you click the big cookie and you get more cookies in your bank. Then you use those cookies to buy upgrades and they auto-click the cookie for you. Eventually it gets to where you don't need to click anything at all to buy stuff."

"So it's a game?" It didn't seem as flashy as the games Tai usually played. "What is the intended purpose of clicking the cookie, then?"

"To make more cookies." Tai sighed, imitating the noise Izzy made whenever he had to explain something that was just so simple. "It's an idle game – you just make numbers go up."

"And once those numbers go up, what happens?" Izzy didn't appreciate the lecturing tone used to explain something so silly.

"They just... keep going up." Tai shrugged. It couldn't be that hard to understand. "That's all you do."

Izzy glared. "So you have assumed my laptop under false pretenses in order to increase the value of intangible digits?"

"I have done nothing of the sort!" Tai put his hands on his hips and pouted. "I just borrowed your computer to play my idle game." Izzy was still fuming. "I finished my homework, at least..."

Izzy pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. It was amazing how easy it was for Tai to bring on headaches. The couch jostled suddenly, and he was kissed warmly on the cheek as the brunette stood.

"I promised Kari I'd be home for lunch, so I gotta go." He scratched his nose in embarrassment. "Didn't mean to bogart your computer. I'll... I'll see you for dinner, right?"

Izzy looked up and smiled. As pain-inducing as Tai could be sometimes, he had a good heart. "Of course. I'll be waiting."

"Great!" Tai took his face in his hands and kissed his boyfriend full on the lips, leaving him slightly breathless. "I didn't close any of your tabs. Love you!"

Izzy smiled as Tai ran out the door, almost forgetting his shoes, and turned his attention back to the screen before him. Instead of closing the tab, where the numbers now read 376,768, he merely opened his own browser. It wouldn't hurt to let it linger for a moment longer.


End file.
